In the season finale of AMC’s The Vampire Lestat, our main vamp is reckoning with some of his life’s greatest failures, including an inability to take over the in-universe Billboard Hot 100.
That failure notwithstanding, it was quite an undertaking for creator Rolin Jones, music writer Daniel Hart and actor Sam Reid to bring Anne Rice’s beloved vampire rock star to the small screen — even if, in their retelling, Lestat’s massive fandom becomes a modest cult following (and his album ends up as a fictional chart flop, bested by Drake).
Yet the character refresh didn’t stop there. While Reid modeled some onstage physicality after rock ‘n’ roll greats, he was careful about not pulling too much. “I looked at a lot of glam rock,” the Aussie tells Billboard over a video call from his home country, where he’s starring in a Sydney production of the play Doubt. “But I was a little bit concerned about him feeling too nostalgic, so I didn’t try and lean too much into that.”
Preparing for the immortal theater kid’s latest musical adventure instead led Reid down a YouTube rabbit hole about… lions. “Lestat’s got big cat energy,” he laughs. “That’s how I always operate with him. It was like that, just on steroids.” In front of an audience, the vampire is feline and cocky, embracing a genre-typical androgyny (but put a pin in that for now).
As we find out, any built-up façade is just as easily torn down. The finale, picking up after the double beheadings —debilitating, but not a sure death sentence — of Lestat and his partner Louis (Jacob Anderson), strips away the unflappable posturing; our Brat Prince spends the episode being roasted by his inner demons. Adding to that choir of critics? Completely brutal pans of his posthumous LP from Pitchfork and Stereogum.
Rejected by the arts and the charts, “He’s not succeeding in anything that he tries to do, even in telling his story,” Reid says. Below, he further breaks down what went into playing rock star Lestat’s rock bottom.
How did you prepare to embody Lestat as a rock star?
You know, it’s weird to say, but I didn’t really think about it too much. Lestat’s always been a performer. He’s always naturally taken on this role of a larger-than-life character. So when I was thinking about the rock performances, I just leaned into the work that we had already done. Trying to overly craft it was a bit of a concern to me because I wanted it to feel natural. I didn’t want it to feel overly choreographed or anything like that.
I did look a lot at some bootleg David Bowie recordings of one of his concerts in Los Angeles. But I was never really trying to emulate David Bowie. It was just always trying to maintain that alien quality. Even though he’s trying to be very raw and express himself in an honest way, he does feel very alien and otherworldly. Throughout the season, I could let that disappear a bit because he was no longer trying to perform.
I was also told you watched Montage of Heck while preparing. What else was on the watch list?
Montage of Heck came very early because Daniel Hart had given me the reference of Kurt Cobain, and I did find that a little bit jarring. I couldn’t quite work out what he meant. I had seen [the documentary] before, but looking at it from the perspective of Lestat was a bit of an eye-opener because the character is so misunderstood. His music was so far-reaching, but there was still this very vulnerable soul that was at the center of it.
I always start with Anne Rice interviews [when playing Lestat]. There are a lot of Jim Morrison references in the book, so I did look at Jim Morrison, trying to work out what she meant. She also has the reference of Jon Bon Jovi. I didn’t find that reference so helpful. [Laughs.] But I did look there.
Rolin, very early, had also said that Lestat is a Fiona Apple-esque kind of id-first musician, so it was fun to go back and examine her music. Saint Vincent was always an inspiration for me for Lestat, as well.
On the topic of female rock stars, what did you think of Lestat saying he wishes he were a woman, too, sometimes?
I don’t know whether that’s him trying to say anything beyond that. I think Lestat isn’t in a gender crisis at all, and it would be wrong to say that’s how we’re portraying him.
But I feel like it does give a nod to — potentially — where he might be going in terms of acknowledging that there is a toxicity that exists within him that might be connected to his maleness, more than anything else.
We see The Vampire Lestat’s album getting negative reviews, including a particularly harsh one from Billboard. How did you feel about the role of music criticism in this season?
It was a great framing device to not make Lestat this global megastar, the way that he is in the books. I think there’s been a big misdirect in the way that this season has intentionally presented itself. Lestat is very powerful, but his whole modus operandi is to try to feel genuine love and appreciation. He might say that he doesn’t need validation, that he’s above the validation. But, actually, deep down, he really does.
Lestat can just be completely burnt down or hit a brick wall time and time again. But he gets up and brushes himself off again. Even in his failure, as he’s dying, he’s unable to form a coherent, beautiful sentence. He can’t even structure one. The grammar trips him up. But he does acknowledge that, even if he didn’t succeed, even if he has failed, even if everybody who he loves thinks he is a failure, at least he tried something.
I think that there’s an important lesson in criticism in that too, because even if everybody says, “Not good enough” or “I don’t appreciate your work,” it’s up to you as the artist to turn around and say, “Do I take that as a full stop? Or do I take that as a semicolon?”
It made me laugh that the prediction of Drake releasing 50 songs and inundating the Billboard charts basically came true.
That was trippy. Props to Rolin, because I was like, “I don’t think this is very realistic. Why is it Drake that releases all of these songs?” And he was adamant that it had to be that. Even me saying that line, I sort of, like, imbued it with so much confusion. Then it turns out Drake does drop all of those songs at once. So props to the oracle Rolin Jones. That just blew my mind. I only just found out that happened.
Based on the release date, Lestat would have actually been behind Taylor Swift.
See, that would have been more realistic for me at the time. [Laughs.]
We don’t quite get to the big concert that brings about the end of the world in this season. Instead, in the finale, he’s imagining himself onstage as he’s about to die, with Louis’ brother, Paul.
It’s quite a beautiful way to finish the season, even though it’s a cliffhanger. What he learns is that Louis does love him. He’s not able to tell him in the clear and concise way that he probably wanted to hear, because the last time Louis said “I love you” to somebody, they committed suicide.
Whether this is the specter of Paul, or just an illusion that he’s conjured up in his dying mind, he hears that Louis loves him and, in that context, understands that he doesn’t need Louis to say it anymore. Because he probably understands Louis on a level that he’s never really fully been able to before. He’s been so self-absorbed and wrapped up in his own need to be loved and fear of abandonment.
You see them separately acknowledge their love for each other and their enduring capacity to be true soulmates. And they will remain so. I think that leads them off into a totally new, different trajectory going forward, if we go forward. We have a new state to exist in.
I think it’s interesting that, even in his own mind, he’s performing.
I mean, he’s trying to. He sits there and is told by those he loves the most, or are the most influential in his life, how much he failed and how awful he is. And his response to that is, “Good show. A bit s—t, but that’s why you’re opening, and I’m headlining.”
But he’s trying to perform, and he can’t get to it. He can’t actually get to the song. He can’t even get to the performance in the way that he wants to. The armor of the rock star just slips away.
You’ve been very modest, but how do you feel about your abilities as a singer now, having gone through this process?
I guess it’s not really part of my DNA to sit there and be like, “Yeah!” [Laughs.] But a few months ago, I sat down and listened to all of the recordings that we did, and it was sort of an astonishing moment where I thought, “My God, look how much work this is.”
I’m super grateful for the opportunity to be able to explore that part of me as a performer. I’ve always sung. I always had it as part of my life. I just never really had the opportunity to explore it in this capacity, which is the kind of capacity that I would like to explore it in. I like to do it in a theatrical context where I’m playing a character, or the songs have a direct correlation to a story that I’d be telling, as opposed to just making music.
Doing the concert was so much fun. I have never done a live concert before. Obviously, I’m playing a character, so, for me, it felt more like doing a play than doing a concert as Sam Reid. There was a level of security in that space. I hope that we, one day, do more. If anything, just to be able to share the amount of work that was put into those songs.
